Ch. 21 Work, work and more work
CLANG
The sound of metal striking metal.
CLANG
A hammer hit against the anvil.
CLANG
Shards of the broken taking form once more.
CLANG
Armour to protect what's important.
CLANG!
Blades to cut down foes.
CLANG!
Soul to retain humanity.
CLANG!
=O=O=O=
Jaune woke up with a start. It was the same dream again. His mind must have still been reeling from overworking himself.
The dreams started when he began working on Cardin's armour and to be fair it wasn't quite the same dream each time. It started with just the armour but has since gone through several different iterations. Sometimes it was him working with armour, sometimes weapons. Sometimes it was his own equipment, sometimes it belonged to his friends. Once he even dreamt about repairing Crocea Mors.
Jaune shook himself awake and went to take a shower. There was work to get done before they went away for summer vacation.
He had finished Cardin's armour a few days ago but since he had some material left over, he kept up with the work schedule. He'd sleep, eat, attend class and spend time in the smithy.
Ruby was incredibly supportive of his endeavours and accompanied him almost every time he went to the workshop. She had taken it upon herself to teach Jaune about mechashift design and this (more often than not) led to inadvertently talking about Crescent Rose. Jaune didn't mind. The warscythe was an example of applying the design principles in a practical way.
Though Jaune was starting to suspect they were both overdoing it just a touch. The time they spent together was enjoyable and productive, but as a result they spent less time practising combat than they perhaps should.
Jaune was falling behind in his training that much was quickly becoming obvious. There was something to be said about the sheer quantity of aura he could use, but it would quickly become a crutch if he focused on increasing his reserves before working on his combat skill. When it came to battle strategy he currently relied on either Ruby or his semblance. And while his semblance allowed him to keep up, according to professor Goodwitch his swordplay was more like a soldier's than a huntsman's.
There was a limit to what his semblance taught him and from the looks of it the more standard a weapon the more standardised the knowledge. He knew from training that Occultus Ferrum taught him a more in depth and more specialised moveset, simply because that's what was required to be at least competent with the niche weapon.
He suspected that should he ever make something as complicated and specific as Crescent Rose his semblance would supply him with knowledge closer to huntsman level, whereas something even simpler than a sword, say a spear would barely give him anything.
There was also testing the limits of his semblance on the crafting front. He didn't necessarily have to make a complete weapon to try and push his aura into a part, so that's what they did. Ruby helped him make parts with varying amounts of success. The whole process was finicky and really depended not only on the amount of work he put into the part, but also the material itself and how he went around working it. So far the only thing they knew for sure was that doing things by hand provided better results than machining parts, surprisingly even if it wasn't Jaune who did the work.
This led to some design decisions he would have to make in future designs. For example rivets in place of screws even in places that would ordinarily not make sense due to the need for disassembly and maintenance.
But that was for future Jaune to consider. He was supposed to focus on combat training today and by the looks he received from Nora yesterday, he would likely have to train until he couldn't move anymore and then some. But alas, that was the price for not putting in the work regularly.
Jaune left the bathroom and approached Ruby's bed. He leaned down and after a quick peck on the cheek whispered.
"Wakey, wakey sleepyhead."
To which he got a mumbled "Five more minutes." which led him to chuckle.
=O=O=O=
Glynda Goodwitch sat at her desk. She had worked through the night and as the rising sun peered through the windows of her office all she could do was curse Ozpin.
The man was apparently too busy to do his own paperwork and let it pile up considerably before hoisting it on her. Of course now she had to deal with paperwork from the Forever Fall incident that should have been long filled away by now. That was in addition to the paperwork associated with a teacher missing a week of his classes due to the aforementioned incident.
And as if that wasn't enough they were also dealing with the Vital festival. Students from the other academies would only be arriving after the summer break was over but that didn't mean that they could rest on their laurels in the meantime.
Plus summer break itself came with its own slew of paperwork to be done as older students took the opportunity to take missions during the break from school and even first years technically needed to be granted leave if they were to spend their vacation outside of Beacon.
Glinda took a sip of her tea. It was cold and bitter as she had made the pot in the evening. The green tea was left to seep for far too long and had since gone cold, but that didn't make it any less effective at keeping the sleep away.
At least she didn't have any classes today as she wasn't entirely sure her students could behave in such a way to not invoke her sleep deprived wrath.
=O=O=O=
Neo woke up late.
Well, no later than usual for her, but considering that most fast food places had stopped serving breakfast hours ago most would agree that it was a late morning. Neo stretched on the large bed in her room and briefly considered going back to sleep before producing a silent sigh and getting up.
Clad in naught but her frilly pink underwear she went to the kitchen to grab some breakfast in the form of a half eaten tub of ice cream with a topping of brightly coloured sugary cereal.
She spread herself across the couch and turned on the news channel. While she technically lived with Roman, they both switched safehouses often enough that they rarely stayed at the same one at the same time. Thus the sloppy behaviour.
Not that Roman's presence would have prevented her from acting like this, it would simply be more entertaining. Roman had never quite gotten used to seeing her exposed like this. He'd become something of a father figure to her but that didn't prevent her from teasing him occasionally.
From Roman's point of view it was probably all the worse precisely because of this relationship. While never having children of his own, his sadistic partner in crime sometimes felt like his own daughter, making it incredibly awkward for him whenever he walked in on her.
The mute thief reminisced about those times as she listened to the news. Eventually the newscaster moved onto a familiar topic, pulling Neo's attention to the television set.
"In other news, the recent string of dust robberies continues. Despite the increases in security and the SDC increasing supply to Vale the prices of dust keep rising. While a true shortage is yet far away the increasing prices are sure to affect the less fortunate."
Neo tuned the rest of the commentary as she was reminded of the last job Roman took her on. Their new boss was back from wherever she disappeared to and she displayed an interest in Neo or more specifically Neo's semblance.
It rubbed her the wrong way to be seen as little more than her semblance and combat ability tied together in a neat little bundle. But they had little choice in the matter. Roman's life hung in the balance and Neo was unwilling to sacrifice him. As it stood, Cinder held all the cards.
=O=O=O=
A crow flew over the city of Vale.
Though perhaps it would be more apt to call it THE crow.
Or simply Qrow.
Qrow was investigating. Not so long ago he was still trying to find the attackers that nearly killed Amber, but after the Forever Fall stampede there was even more on his plate.
Peter Port's investigation in the forest wasn't in vain and revealed quite a bit about the whole incident. First of all the stampede was indeed manmade and likely triggered by releasing previously captured Grimm. A more in depth look proved Glynda's suspicion about this being the work of the White Fang.
And since that came to light Qrow was tasked with helping find them. Peter found traces of several camps that had relocated that day and that many faunus didn't just disappear. No settlement reported sightings of their transport nor an influx of people.
As such the logical conclusion was that they were still hiding somewhere around Vale. Qrow had already stumbled upon a small recruitment rally, but most of the faunus went home afterwards and didn't lead him anywhere in particular. Of course the ones in charge disappeared pretty much without a trace.
Qrow was certain that he would have seen them from the bird's eye view, but apparently they had used some underground path. Could have been severs, old service ways or even newly dug tunnels. Or any combination of those. Still that didn't actually help at all.
The main body of the organisation was still nowhere to be found. And Qrow was looking. He had circled the walls several times in increasing distance from the city. He had even ventured to the ruins of Mt. Glenn and surveyed a good chunk of it before a flock of Nevermore chased him out of there.
And so he was reduced to just flying aimlessly for now, waiting for the sun to go down again so that he could visit some friends in the seedier parts of Vale. But until then he could do little more than hope to stumble upon some clue to crack this case.
Qrow landed on a rooftop and turned into his human form.
He took a deep swig from his flask.
"This is going to be a long fucking day yet…"
Soon there was no trace of a man standing there, only a bunch of black feathers slowly gliding to the ground as a crow flew away.
=O=O=O=
Ozpin sat in his office. His desk was a mess of reports, sightings, plans and predictions.
He had begun at sunrise and now the sun was slowly setting. Unfortunately Ozpin didn't have the luxury of enjoying the sunset today.
There was still a lot to consider and the prospects weren't looking good. The biggest issue was without a doubt the lack of information. They simply didn't know enough about the enemy's movement to predict any of their plans.
He was still processing the recent police report that connected the White Fang with Roman Torchwick's string of dust robberies. Was he stealing the dust for the White Fang? No, that didn't quite make sense, not even a terrorist organisation needed that much dust to run its day to day operations. Unless they were planning something big… but what? Did Torchwick hire the White Fang to be his minions? No, the White Fang wouldn't bow down to the likes of Torchwick. Unless they had a large enough incentive.
Then there was the question of why would Torchwick steal dust in the first place. This simply wasn't his modus operandi. Torchwick was always more interested in antiques and jewellery than dust and Lien.
Overall the whole thing was a mess and despite mobilising as many of his operatives as he could he couldn't make heads or tails of the current situation.
That was of course unless this was one of her schemes. It would make some modicum of sense then. The question still remained though. What was her end goal? Surely it wasn't as simple as driving prices of dust up? Salem has of course had her hand in pettier schemes over the years, but with what happened to Amber the plan must have been grander than this.
Where would she strike next? When would she strike next? And was she even connected to this, or would she only strike him once he was already down?
He sipped at his cold coffee before frowning at the cold mug.
"Caldus." he whispered as he gripped his cane ever so slightly tighter.
He took a sip of his now hot coffee and got back to analysing the clues gathered on his desk.
=O=O=O=
Author's note:
Yeah, finally! We're finally getting to the meat of the story. I've dropped some hints but this is (I think) the first real confirmation of MAGIC working a bit different from canon RWBY. Also Neo! My favourite sociopath made her debut. I feel really excited about writing more. I have more ideas than time to write.
As for my personal life, yeah... work, work and more work indeed. But hey at least I get paid. Also, time to think about the story. If the idea stays in my brain it means it's a good one.
Also, I lied! Summer vacation starts now!
I hope you enjoyed and are looking forward to the next chapter: Ch. 22 Vacation